[ Now, please note something, think of what
we realised reading carefully in its context just a single verse:

δῖε
Μενοιτιάδη τῷ ἐμῷ κεχαρισμένε θυμῷ

Son of
Menoetius, divine gift to the thirst of my soul

Whatever history of the Greek
literature I might open to read the story of Achilles, I won't understand even
half of what the text itself can give me, if I read it carefully. Otherwise, I
will probably translate, like Butler, "Noble son of Menoetius, man after my
own heart", where Patroclus has become something like an aristocratic flirt of
Achilles', in any case indifferent to me, indifferent to my life and to all
history. Maybe this indifference, due to
the superficial reading of the texts, to the superficial treatment of our own
lives, is the cause of decline of the fascination of the classical
works. ]